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Welcome to the trueCall Community Forum - The official discussion forum for trueCall users.

You are currently browsing as a guest. You are invited to register with the trueCall Community Forum and join this growing community of trueCall users. Registration only takes a minute and has benefits such as the ability to post messages, private messaging and more.

This is the officialtrueCall User Support Forum, also known as trueCall Community. It has been set up as a collaboration between trueCall (the company) and enthusiasts, but is entirely run by enthusiasts and is editorially independent of trueCall.

For those of you unused to forums in general, they provide the Internet equivalent of a conference, with lots of discussions going on simultaneously, any of which you can listen in to and contribute if you wish. Some Internet forums are general in content, others specific - in this case we will only discuss trueCall products and subjects in some way relevant to them (there is the Village Pump where off-subject chat will be allowed - but keep it harmless).

Anyone can read the discussions, but you will only be able to contribute to them by registering with the forum. This includes registered users of the trueCall control panel service: you will have to register separately with the forum, and there is no guarantee you will be able to use the same username or password (sorry). Having registered you will also be able to start a new topic - for example to ask a question or share an experience - but please be careful to check the subject has not been covered before, and when starting your topic please do so in the correct category (equivalent to subject-specific meeting rooms). A descriptive title is very much encouraged - it always helps people look for things if the title properly summarises what a topic is all about (and staff will edit a topic title if considered appropriate to do so).

When you register you will acknowledge and agree to our terms and conditions. These are not arduous, but mostly concern decent behaviour on the forum and to remind you that this is the Internet after all, and anything you might input becomes (effectively) public domain. The administrators of the forum also reserve the right to use the content in any way for the betterment of the trueCall Community.

While we are quite content for posts to be jokey and have light-hearted banter, we will not tolerate foul language, personal attacks, arguments (beyond reasonable debate on the subject at hand), or anything else that we might judge contrary to the purpose of the forum or offensive to polite society. We have a variety of sanctions available, ranging from warning the perpetrator, through editing or removing the offending content, to a temporary or permanent ban. The users can help us with this - anything you see that you think is in the wrong place or should not be on the forum at all, draw it to the staff attention by clicking the "Report" button (available on every post).

Spam posters are an ever-present evil on web forums (trying to advertise web sites, products and services, malware...) and these will be removed and banned as soon as we spot them. Again, use the "Report" button.

In summary, I am sure I have made my point: we do not expect contributors merely to uphold the letter of the law, but also the spirit in which it is intended. Further information that might aid your experience of the forum is available by following the links here:

Something else to remember: I do not have all the answers, even though I might be the first to reply to any particular forum post. There are many variations of the trueCall unit and the manner in which it is used, and I only have direct personal experience of one type and one usage. However, that said, those of us who have been on the forum longest will also have absorbed the most information.

That's enough of the heavy stuff, welcome aboard and please... enquire within! If you feel like it, start a topic in the Welcome section to introduce yourself and briefly describe your reason for signing up.

Let me briefly introduce the subject under discussion. Much more will be found on the trueCall web site (click here), but a few words should get readers up and running.

Basically, trueCall sits on your phone line and acts as your receptionist, screening incoming calls and deciding what to do with them based on what it can work out from the originating number. What it does can be adjusted in many ways, but here is a typical scenario:

Callers on my star (approved) list: send them straight through to the home phone, and offer to take a message if it doesn't get answered.

Callers on my zap (banned) list: play them an announcement saying I am not interested in their call.

Callers reported as "international", or "number withheld" or "unavailable": allow them to leave a message but do not ring the phone.

This scenario allows me complete peace from nuisance calls: anybody identified as "friend" can ring me or at the very least leave me a message; "foe" are sent packing; calls of unidentified source can leave a message if it's important (marketing calls rarely leave messages).

This is very secure but won't suit everybody. If you expect calls from abroad, you may wish to handle them in a different way, either allowing them through as "friend" or using the whisper function: trueCall asks them to say their name, and then passes that on to you to decide whether you wish to take the call. You could also give your friends a code to dial to break through the call screening and get straight to your phone. The possibilities are extensive.

How can the trueCall identify the incoming caller? The answer to this is CLI or Caller Line Identification (also known as Caller-ID), which is a service provided by your phone company on request (sometimes there is a fee, but often it is included as part of a package). CLI is standard on mobile phones, and allows you to see the number that is calling before you answer it. CLI is (almost) essential* for trueCall to do its job.

How do you tell trueCall which calls are friend and which are foe? Pressing the star or hash key after dialling the relevant number or receiving a call will do it, or you can examine the call logs through an Internet control panel** to set star and zap lists. The detailed operation of the trueCall is easiest to set up through the control panel, although the different variants available are already tailored to specific roles and may not require further customisation.

The requirements for effective use of trueCall are these:

A modern phone socket;

A tone-dial phone to plug into it (a DECT cordless phone base station is an effective choice***);

A mains supply conveniently located;

CLI service from the phone company (optional, but highly recommended)*.

* I have had to revise this since a user reported finding trueCall useful without CLI. In this case, one has to treat all calls as potentially hostile and either screen them through the Whisper function or divert to answering machine, with the option to provide "friends" with a break-through key code.

*** It is advisable to have a normal wired phone in addition to a cordless set in case of power cuts. There is at least one phone on the market which is a DECT base station combined with a corded handset.